Despite talent, music bands struggle to find space

New Delhi, Feb 14 (IANS) They met on Facebook and formed the five-member metal band Scythus but soon faced the same problems as other similar groups — mismanagement, false promises and non-payment.

Bands are struggling to survive, says Varun Dayal, rhythm guitarist of Scythus, which recently secured second position at the all-India Channel V Launchpad competition.

“Music bands are struggling to find space in India. There is a lot of talent among people when you look around… Also, a lot of it is based on luck,” Varun told IANS.

The band was formed in 2010 and comprises Varun, Aryan (vocalist), Samarth Trehan (drummer), Rishabh Mahajan (bassist) and Rohit Sharma (lead guitarist), all of them combining studies with their passion for music.

While Rohit and Rishabh are pursuing English (hons) from Delhi University, Samarth is doing his architecture from Sushant School of Art and Architecture. Aryan is enrolled in BBA from Amity University.

Varun, who is currently pursuing Economics (Hons) from Khalsa College, says organisational hassles are the main hindrance.

“If you’ve noticed, a lot of competitions are being organised today, which are rather disorganised. They don’t know how to treat artistes at all and moreover have no respect for music at all,” he said.

“Cutting the sound in the middle of a song, shortening the time slot at the last moment because they start late (because they start setting up all the equipment at the time it’s scheduled to start) and in some cases not even letting the registered bands play.

“So you can’t really blame the bands for not getting recognition. A lot of them have to give up and say, ‘the scene in India is bad’,” he added.

Bombay Vikings and Band of Boys, for instance, came up and soon disappeared from the scene.

Varun says that his band didn’t receive payment for one of the shows where they played. “But we didn’t want to resort to cheap ways to recover the money, so we didn’t raise our voice.”

A lot of people, he said, promised but never delivered and then defended themselves saying there was no written agreement.

Scythus was formed through social networking site Facebook.

“Scythus was formed in 2010 when all of us were over with our 10th boards. Samarth and I were in the same school, Mother’s International, and Rohit and Rishabh were together in Ryan International,” said Varun.

“Samarth and I used to jam quite often. Rohit saw one of our videos and approached us on Facebook. We jammed together a couple of times and the band was formed. We play melodic metal. We try to sound unique. All of us have different influences and hence we try not to be one of the monotonous metal bands,” he said.

The band has also opened gigs for the British band Cyanide Serenity and the Norwegian band Social Suicide.

“We don’t really have any plans for the near future, apart from keeping up with our college work! On the musical front, we do plan to play some bigger gigs that come our way, and we plan to release an EP (Extended Play, a musical recording that contains more than a single, but less than a full album) by the end of 2012,” said Varun.